Movie Review Nerdland

Nerdland (2016) 

Directed by Chris Prynoski 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

Starring Patton Oswalt, Paul Rudd, Kate Miccucci, Riki Lindholme, Mike Judge, Hannibal Burress

Release Date December 6th, 2016

Published November 29th, 2016 

Nerdland features the voices of Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt as John and Elliott, loser roommates starving for fame. John is an aspiring actor and Elliott is a screenwriter though neither seems particularly interested in the work that goes into becoming famous, just the fame. There could be comedy to be wrung from a pair of fame-whoring losers but Nerdland pretty much stops at making John and Elliott losers. 

After John fails at a lame attempt to get Elliott’s screenplay into the hands of a dopey movie star during an interview junket the two begin brainstorming awful get famous quick schemes. Among the failed attempts at becoming stars is a YouTube style video where they give a giant check to a homeless person in hope that their charity will go viral. Unfortunately, Elliott fails to record the attempt and the homeless man runs away with the oversized novelty check. 

After fame manages to elude them in several other ways the guys take a shot at infamy, brainstorming a mass murder spree. John and Elliott visit their landlord with the intent of making her their first victim, which should be easy, they reason, because she is very old. Naturally, they fail as killers as well and the film then spins off into a minor media parody after the guys witness a robbery and become the targets of both the police and dangerous mobsters.

Throughout the movie references are dropped regarding a rebuilt Hollywood sign. The reveal of the sign is mentioned several times during the film and it comes up one last time during the film’s climactic scene. Spoiler alert: We never find out why the sign matters in any way. That actually may not be a spoiler as it plays absolutely no role at all in the outcome of the film or the fates of John and Elliott and yet it drags on throughout the entire run of the movie.

The sign bit is emblematic of how sloppy and shapeless Nerdland is but that is not what makes the film so damn disappointing. It’s the talent that made this shapeless, sloppy, mess of a movie that is so disappointing. On top of Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd, a dynamic comic duo completely wasted, we have the talents of Riki Lindholme and Kate Micucci, AKA Garfunkel & Oates, Mike Judge, Paul Scheer, Laraine Newman, Hannibal Burress and “Seven” screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

Chris Prynoski is the director of Nerdland and I have to imagine he is responsible for the final product. Prynoski has a cult following from his similarly odd animated TV shows Metalocalypse, Superjail, and the recent live action and animated series Son of Zorn. Prynoski’s style is combatively unfocused, he seems to actively not care if the audience laughs. Prynoski engages in the kind of anti-comedy that attempts to mine laughs from the absurd lack of something funny. Sometimes this kind of comedy can be exciting as a taunt toward a passive audience. In Nerdland it just feels messy and shapeless, even if you feel like you get the anti-joke.

I cannot for the life of me tell you why the movie is called Nerdland. I guess that John and Elliott could be considered nerds but they aren’t really interesting enough to earn any label other than losers. The one character who could rise to a common stereotype of a nerd is played by Hannibal Burress but he is such a grotesque caricature that he defies any simplistic label. Burress’s character is fat and sloppy and runs a comic book store and has access to the darkest corners of nerd culture; something the movie seems to use for narrative convenience except that Prynoski loses interest in even playing out his narrative clichés.

Anti-comedy is tough to pull off. The intent is to drive away lazy audiences and potentially entertain a few of the like-minded souls willing to overlook the ugliness to find the bold and daring comedy below. Andy Kaufman eating ice cream on stage at The Comedy Store is anti-comedy at its finest, a daring taunt from a comic genius who knows that the absurd silent scene on stage is funnier than most of the written material of any other comic. Chris Prynoski is no Andy Kaufman. His brand of anti-comedy isn’t as well refined or daring, merely off-putting.

The joke of Nerdland seems to be its own existence. It plays as if Chris Prynoski hired an all-star team of comic talents with the intention of doing nothing remotely funny with them. It is most certainly a taunt and it does provoke the audience but it lacks wit. Only Chris Prynoski knows why Nerdland is intentionally unfunny and if that self-satisfaction is enough for him then I bow to him. I don’t recommend his movie but I respect what I assume is the self-satisfying result.

Documentary Review My Date with Drew

My Date with Drew (2004) 

Directed by Brian Herzlinger, Jon Gunn

Written by Documentary 

Starring Brian Herzlinger, Drew Barrymore

Release Date August 5th, 2004

Published November 15th, 2004 

In reviews of Brian Herzlinger's documentary My Date With Drew words like 'charming', 'sweet' and 'cute' are often used. On the other hand, so are the words 'creepy' and 'stalker'. There are clearly two camps on My Date With Drew and I find that I agree with the creepy/stalker side. Yes, My Date With Drew has the admirable quality of extreme low budget filmmaking but it plays more like the audition tape to some dopey reality show. Was Brian Herzlinger making a documentary or just trying to get on MTV before he turned 30.

Brian Herzlinger has had a major crush on Drew Barrymore since he was six years old and first saw E.T. Who can blame him, she was adorable in that film and after some dark detours in her life she has remained adorable. So I can understand Herzlinger's fascination. However that is where we part ways. Where I am happy to admire Drew Barrymore's beauty and talent from afar, Brian Herzlinger took the 1100 hundred dollars he won on a game show and used it to land himself a date with Drew Barrymore and the idea for My Date With Drew was born.

With a camera borrowed from Circuit City that must be back before the 30 day return policy runs out, Brian and his friends set out on a variation of my favorite college drinking game: six degrees of Kevin Bacon--only replacing Kevin with Drew. Operating on the theory that everyone in L.A knows someone who knows someone who's cousin knows someone's facialist, Brian sets out to meet anyone who can get him close to Drew. Indeed he even talks to Drew's actual facialist.

The film features interviews with people like Drew's cousin, who has actually never met Drew despite the relationship. Brian interviews actor Eric Roberts who is on a TV show with Andy Dick who it is rumored is friends with Drew. Roberts offers little other than the fact that he may be slightly creepier than Brian. Roberts is also no help in getting Andy Dick who refuses an interview request. Somehow Brian works his way down the Hollywood food chain to Corey Feldman who dated Drew for two months sometime in the 80's but is no help in contacting her now.

That hint of irony that Brian brings to his encounters with Roberts and Feldman betrays the premise that My Date With Drew is really sincere. Feldman and Roberts have that desperate quality of the C-list celebs who will make time for anything they can put on the resume, and Herzlinger seems to exploit that in scenes that are more sad than funny. Therein lies the biggest problem with My Date With Drew, Brian Herzlinger's lack of sincerity.

I simply did not believe the whole thing was anything more than a career-making stunt. I appreciated his ingenuity but thought his abuse of Ms. Barrymore's persona was creepy and self serving. That eventually Ms. Barrymore see's his motives as pure and clever does not sway my opinion. The film lives and dies by Herzlinger's sincere feelings about Drew Barrymore and her work and I never bought it.

Yes, Brian gets his date with Drew, and her love for the project and sincere appreciation of Brian's persistence nearly made me like him and the movie. Barrymore takes the perspective that Brian is merely ambitious and ingenious and she is happy to help that. But that idea is at odds with much of what came before. Is this about Brian sincerely wanting to meet his favorite celebrity, or is this about his career? The film blurs Brian's real intentions.

There is a story of how Matt Stone and Trey Parker managed to get South Park on the air. They made a tape for some industry guy who passed it around Hollywood. It landed in the hands of George Clooney and, from there, onto the desks of the people at Comedy Central. That rough tape never aired but it opened a lot of doors. One of the reasons I found My Date With Drew to be less than sincere is that it plays a little like that South Park tape. It's rough but quite clever and plays like Brian Herzlinger's ploy to make a name for himself and not as the sincere childhood pursuit of a dream that Herzlinger claims it is.

I did enjoy Brian Herzlinger's encounter with Drew. She seems genuinely enthused and leaves any kind celebrity pretense out of it. She is truly what you would hope a big star would be like if you met her, and seeing that makes me want to like this little movie. Unfortunately I do not, because she is not the star of the picture.

When on the actual 'date', Drew talks about how chasing a dream and having the drive to make it happen is a wonderful thing and I don't disagree. That Brian Herzlinger set a difficult goal and achieved it is quite admirable but what does it say about that dream if realizing it is merely hero worship and opportunism. The emptiness of Herzlinger's goal and the creepy stalker-esque way he goes about achieving it brings a whole other vibe to the movie that I'm sure is unintended.

The very funny comedian Eugene Mirman once said that some percentage of stalking has to work. Brian Herzlinger may just be the proof of that. Okay, maybe it's a little harsh to call Herzlinger a stalker. The film never portrays him to be dangerous or deranged. The word I would use to describe him is misguided. I would think that someone of Herzlinger's imagination and sticktoitiveness could find something more constructive to do with his time than pursue a celebrity.

I can tell you this: I wish I'd had other, more constructive things to do than watch him pursue a celebrity.

Movie Review Night Catches Us

Night Catches Us (2010) 

Directed by Tanya Hamilton

Written by Tanya Hamilton 

Starring Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Wendell Pierce

Release Date December 3rd, 2010 

Published December 7th, 2010 

A number of movies have tackled the story of the Black Panthers as they rose and became a force on the national scene. Their charismatic leaders became icons and their movement became a legend. As the civil rights era wound out the Panthers seemed to lose their way and many of their stories faded with the movement.

Director Tanya Hamilton takes us back to the time just after the Panthers heyday and in “Night Catches Us” gives us a composite story of the people who lived the legend and what happened to them in the wake of such astonishing drama, revelation, struggle, sadness and in some cases triumph.

It's 1976 and Marcus Washington (Anthony Mackie) is returning home to his South Philadelphia neighborhood for the first time in nearly a decade. Marcus left under a cloud of suspicion after one of his fellow Black Panther Party members was shot and killed by police. The remaining panthers came to believe that he ran because he sold the dead man to the cops.

Now, with his preacher father having passed away, Marcus returns to find many of the tensions he escaped still boiling. Marcus's brother Bostic (Tariq Trotter, The Roots) has become a devout Muslim who maintains a grudge but is more civil than most. The remaining Panther leader, Do Right (Jamie Hector) has allegedly turned to crime and intimidation as the tools of revolution.

Do Right makes his feelings clear by vandalizing Marcus's car, leaving the word 'snitch' etched into the side of the black caddie left to Marcus by his late father. The one person who welcomes Marcus back, even into her home, is Patricia (Kerry Washington), the wife of Marcus's former Panther brother who was killed by police.

The history between Marcus and Patricia is thick with meaning and in it “Night Catches Us” has a strong romantic/dramatic hook. Sadly, the rest of the plot hinges on characters whose actions are forced and used only as plot drivers, as if director Tanya Hamilton felt she didn't have enough juice in Marcus and Patricia's relationship to move the film forward.

Amari Cheatom plays Jimmy, Patricia's troubled cousin. Jimmy has a painful encounter with local cops that leads him on a path to the kind of militancy he believes the Panthers stood for. You might think Marcus would try to stop him but there would be no point, Jimmy is a creation of the plot meant to push conflict.

Stronger supporting performances come from Wendell Pierce as a corrupt cop holding Marcus's most difficult secret and young Jamara Griffin as Patricia's 9 year old daughter Iris. Pierce brings back fond memories of his performance as a much better detective on HBO's The Wire. Griffin is a young talent to watch, a natural actress with terrific instincts and a distinctive face.

When “Night Catches Us” is focused on Marcus and Patricia, their past and possible future, it is deeply moving and evocative. Setting their story, their past, with that of the Black Panthers, including archive footage to underscore the importance of the struggle they were fictionally part of, gives it a fiery context that encompasses them, their neighborhood and all around them. 

Jimmy, unfortunately, is a dramatic contrivance that distracts from the main story of “Night Catches Us” and leads us to believe that there is not enough in the main story to give the film the drive it needs to get to a satisfying conclusion. Too bad, Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington indeed do deliver the goods. There was no need for contrivance, no reason for writer-director Hamilton to lack confidence and undermine her main story.